This bookmark is way before my time, or at least way before my bookbuying days. It must have been in the book when I bought it. Which book? I’m not sure. I pulled a few down from a shelf and was so spellbound by GRamercy that I forgot to make note of which book.
In my student days, I was a regular visitor to the Strand Book Store. I’d take the bus from New Jersey to the Port Authority, walk downtown, and schlep back with two enormous shopping bags full of books. Many of them used, many of them remainders, very cheap. I was in Accumulating Mode, which seems to still function well in young adults. Now that I’m deaccessioning, I realize that many of these finds have proved less than useful. That’s putting it mildly. But I’m happy to have the bookmark.
After extensive imagining, I have determined that this bookmark dates from November 1959. Ornette Coleman was playing at the Five Spot, half a mile from the Strand.
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9:00 p.m.: November 1959 won’t work: my extensive imagining didn’t take the ZIP code into account. See the comments. And thanks, misterbagman.
A related post
Booksmith bookmark
[Did I really need three books on John Dryden? At one time I must have thought so.]
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Strand bookmark
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comments: 4
Alas, Professor, that marker bears a ZIP code, and that means it's no older than 1963 (certainly much earlier than my book-buying days, which commenced in earnest when I was about eight years old in 1975).
As for 1963, Monk's Dream came out that year, but Bill Evans was also in the full flower of his heroin addiction.
Oh dang — thanks for catching that. I’m ZIP-conscious, I swear (see this post), but I was hypnotized by that exchange name. I went right past the ZIP without even seeing it.
Can we make it 1964? A brighter year, with the Beatles on Ed Sullivan.
Similar Strand bookmark, complete with "GRamercy", found in a book published in 1963. See: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pellethepoet/24366511340/
Thanks for sharing that, and for linking to this post too. There can never be too many old bookmarks. And yours is pre-ZIP.
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